The Chaos of Orcus(4e Paragon Tier game)

[Conundrum]

"Great, after you," Vaeron said distractedly, watching the fighting men. "Ugh, look at that technique. Awful. Leaves himself open after every swing..."

[Lemonus]

Peren holds up his hand, the walks over to the fighting men. He watches them for a second, then speaks. "Your form is sloppy. You leave yourself open after every swing, and your movements have no grace. Try this." Peren the executes a graceful arc of his sword, which he turns at the last minute into a slash to the side. "See? Try that."

[Mindfreak]

The tall man imitates Peren, but the shorter one counters it easily. The tall one is about 6'3" and the shorter one is about 5'9". They are both wearing armor as part of their training, and they are also wearing helmets. The short one then easily disarms the taller person, and pushes him to the ground. The person then thrust their sword at the man's neck and said in a muffled voice:
"Do you yield?"
"I do!"
The man on the ground takes of his helmet, and his brown hair is short, and his eyes are blue. He is human, and looks quite like the Baron. The short person took off their helmet, and her blond hair cascaded down. She looked at Peren with her blue eyes. She was a half-elf.
"First, thanks for watching me kick this kid's butt. Second, who are you?"
The pale man with the orange hair and freckles spoke up.
"Miss Beatress, your father hired these men for a job. I am sure they have much to do, so we should be off."
The man looked at you.
"Now come along, J&R Farms is close by, right over that hill."
He said this while pointing and lead them to the farm. He brought them to a man and a women working in a field. The man stretches up and wipes the sweat of his brow. He was bald with green eyes, but was an elf, and the women mirrored him. He opened his mouth.
"What business do you have here? Do you want to buy one of the old wagons?"

[Dan2]

Warryn steps forward and pulls himself up to his maximum height before offering a handshake to the man. "Mr Johnroot! It's a pleasure to meet you sir, and your lovely wife as well. We've heard remarkable things about your business here. Best wine in the town, or so we've heard. The reason we're here is actually related to your wine, not your carts." Warryn gestures toward a nearby building smiling disarmingly, "We may wish to continue our conversation in private. I'm not sure how much is public knowledge and how much you want to be public knowledge."

[Mindfreak]

The elf looked indifferent.
"First, she is my wife. Secondly, I am not Mr. Johnroot. He is currently up at the house behind me. If you want to speak with him you will have to go up there. And thirdly, we are selling the wagons for next to nothing. Great condition, all you need to do is put on a new coat of paint. He just got our new wagons today."

[Dan2]

Warryn looks taken aback for the briefest of moments before continuing, "I'm terribly sorry for the misunderstanding. We were expecting to meet with Mr Johnroot. Though, I have to applaud your integrity. There are many that would have tried to take advantage of the mistake."

Warryn assesses his surroundings, looking around for the carts mentioned earlier, "As for those carts, you couldn't expect us to be interested unless we could inspect the carts ourselves."

[Mindfreak]

"If you want to see the carts, follow me."
The elf gets up and starts walking towards a barn. The door was closed.

[Conundrum]

"I am kind of curious as to why he'd be selling the carts so cheap... we can always go and talk with Mr. Johnroot immediately afterwards."

[Skybound Fencer]

Nera followed after the elf, waiting to see the wagons before making a judgment.

"Generosity always hides something else," he said wisely.

[Mindfreak]

The of opens the bar door, showing a perfectly good wagon. Nothing in the least was wrong with it. On the side, the paint was still in good condition. It read: "J&R Winemakers. Est. 1152" it was of course the year 1352, so it seems they have been in business for a long time. The elf looked back at you.
"The reason we are selling them for so cheap is because no one wants to buy from the Johnroots. Not many people are comfertable dealing with Drow."

[Dan2]

Warryn walks over to the wagon and tries to find a way to gain a higher vantage point as he inspects them. "Well this raises a number of questions," he says. "I hope you won't take offense at any of this, but don't elves typically have, um, severe reservations about drow? Also, Johnroot doesn't seem to be a typically Fey name. Would you mind shedding some light on this for us?"

As he finally gets atop the cart, where he can inspect it closely, Warryn casts light on his holy symbol to get a better look.

[Conundrum]

"Well, the Baron neglected to mention that the Johnroots are Drow. That might explain the other odd thing we've heard - that the Johnroots sell a lot of their wine to the goblins nearby. Can you tell us anything more about that... business arrangement?"

[Mindfreak]

"The Johnroot family has been dealing with Goblins ever since they were established. No one else will buy their wine, since drow have a reputation for poison."

When Warry. Inspects the cart, he would find that it is in peak condition. Nothing is wrong with it at all.

"I have only the utmost respect for Mr. Johnroot. He helped me pull my life together after a problem with Brothels."

He wiped his brow again.

"As you might expect, the Johnroots had to leave the underground after they decided to be good. They left their Drow names behind, and started a new life."

[Conundrum]

Vaeron furrowed his brow.

"So, they left the underdark and their evil brethren behind, came to the surface, and... consort with a tribe of evil goblins? That's certainly not going to endear the local village to you, even ignoring their inherent distrust of drow."

Spoiler

Show

Insight check to see if he's keeping anything from us, specifically about the relationship between the Johnroots and the goblins.

(1d20+5)[13]

[Mindfreak]

The elf frowned.
"You seem to be forgetting a key fact, Mr. and Mrs. Johnroot only started selling to the goblins because they almost went broke because no one would buy their wine. It's disgusting, to me, that people can't get over a person's looks, and decide to avoid them all together."

[Lemonus]

"The Johnroots have been in business a long time. Have the goblins been around that long?"

[Mindfreak]

"They have. I'm the one who always drops off the wine. They pay fairly, and they don't give me trouble. I think they are told to be courteous by their chief, I've only met him a few times, but he loves wine."

[Dan2]

Warryn finishes his inspection of the cart just in time to catch the end of the conversation. Hopping off the cart, Warryn approaches the elf and says, "You make the deliveries yourself? All the way into their camp?"
A grin splits Warryn's small face ear to ear, "I'm confident we can find a use for these carts. If you would allow it, I need a moment to speak with my friends in private."

[Mindfreak]

"Yup, been doing it for years. In fact, I have to bring in a shipment today, which is a shame because today we plant a new bunch of grape vines, it's my favorite job. And go ahead and talk to your friends, Mr. Johnroot will be happy to be rid of the wagons. Their only 10 gold pieces per, and I'll even throw in horse to pull it if you shell out an extra 30 gold."

[Dan2]

"Excellent! Thank you for the offer."
Warryn begins gathering the team at the rear of the building but stops short, turning back to the elf, "Oh! If you would please stick around. I have a feeling we may need to ask you a few more questions for you."

Once the groups is gathered at the back, Warryn quietly says, "I have an idea. We could do this the old fashioned way; get directions to the camp, go there ourselves, and fight them all as we search for weapons that they could easily move as they retreat. Or, we could work with the people here to get to the bottom of this. If our elf friend takes us along on his delivery, we get a free ride directly into the heart of the territory."
Warryn pauses to let the idea take hold before continuing, "Furthermore, if trading with them is possible, negotiating may also be possible. Keep in mind, Reggie's the one that sent us on this mission. He's not yet above suspicion. We should talk with the Johnroots and get the history of the situation before we make any real decisions."
Warryn gestures back to the carts, "Besides, I have some great ideas for the carts."

[Conundrum]

Vaeron was getting excited again.

"Ooh, subterfuge!" he said eagerly. "I love it. What's your plan, hide us in the wagons? Because we can't exactly stroll in there fully armed. But, if we're in the carts, there won't be room for the wine... and then our friendly elf there might get in trouble. I'd rather keep civilians out of danger if I can."

[Lemonus]

"We could just say that there are bandits on the road to the goblins, and that we are guards."

[Dan2]

"Clearly, we need to discuss the particulars of the delivery with the elf to know the details, but it seems clear to me that we're going to want to match the conditions of a normal delivery. If there aren't normally guards accompanying the shipment, adding guards would be suspicious, no matter the reasoning. If it comes down to it, we can displace some of the cargo to hide. If everything goes well, we can personally make an extra delivery to the camp with the carts we're going to buy. If things go poorly, there shouldn't be terribly many goblins left over to miss the extra wine."

[Conundrum]

"We could all conceal our weapons, though we'd still have to come up with a convincing reason for being there."

Vaeron's face suddenly lit up, and then he smiled smugly.

"Or, we could use the distraction of the wine delivery to sneak inside?"

[Dan2]

"I don't know how many of us could actually make it in that way. Besides, I'd rather be up front about speaking with them... Uh, once we're done using deception to get in..."

[Skybound Fencer]

Nera remained silent for a long moment, before chiming in calmly:

"The elf said that he does his deliveries himself, which implies that he does not need escort - why would he, when the goblins have been shown to be friendly? I do believe that we are going to have to displace some of the cargo, assuming our elf...friend...doesn't spot us. I doubt he'd agree to that plan."

He paused. "Of all of you, I am perhaps the one that could afford to stay out. I need no weapons but my body, no armor but my mind, and who suspects a monk?" He smiled faintly.

[Dan2]

"I don't think our friend over there is going to have a problem with what we're doing, especially if we explain that our primary goal is talking with them."

Warryn steps away from the group to speak to the elf once more, "We'd love to buy a cart from Mr Johnroot, but we also have something we will need to discuss with both you and him. Could you take us to see him please?"

[Mindfreak]

The elf frowned.
"Fine. But only one of you may come along. And you may not bring a weapon with you or wear your armor. Mr. Johnroot gets frightened by that sort of thing, when he first came here, people tried to run him out of town, because he was a drow."

[Dan2]

"Certainly, my good man. As you can see, I wear no armor. It is not a weapon, but if it makes him uncomfortable, you may also take my holy symbol."
Warryn looks to his team and continues, "Unless any of you have an objection..."

[Mindfreak]

"It depends on what god you serve. The mob that tried to run him out said it was in the name of Pelor."